Sure, many factors can explain the initial "surge" in pledges: pre-launch marketing, featuring on recently launched, novelty, first spread on social medias, etc

Sure, many factors can explain the initial "surge" in pledges: pre-launch marketing, featuring on recently launched, novelty, first spread on social medias, etc. I did not really try to explain the causes of the different phases, but merely to use the raw data to predict the state at the end (successful or failed).